Project Submitted!

Project submitted!

The project report has been handed in: the piece of technical literature which will have the greatest weight on my grade for this academic year. This was, in fact, done nine days ago, but it has taken me this time to recover and find the time to express the event in words. With the stress of the individual project having been lifted, there exists a sort of limbo which feels something akin to the day after the lord mayor’s show. This is unfortunately something of an illusion since the exam period kicks off in earnest on 24 May which seems almost routine. Regardless of the outcome of the project, it is still necessary to put similar effort into the revision for exams as in previous years.

The project report does not mark an end to the project itself. The Viva process remains. This constitutes 10% of the mark, but in reality it is worth far more. A common complaint with the marking of coursework is the lack of an opportunity to explain the thought process behind the approach; show the end result in action and answer questions that the examiner may have. The Viva serves this purpose. A project typically has two examiners; the supervisor and academic from another part of ECS. Chances are that the second examiner will have met with the project student on two or three occasions for a brief insight into the project and would have read the project report by the time of the Viva. Whilst the supervisor will be aware of the path taken by the project, the second examiner will be much less involved and would have developed an impression of the project from afar. That distance allows the second examiner to cast a critical eye on the project: I’m told that this invariably leads to the dynamic of the Viva resembling something like an interrogation with the supervisor playing good-cop and the second examiner playing bad-cop. (Wasn’t me gov, honest). Although this definition has a negative cogitation, I’m treating it like an opportunity to put a positive spin on the project and justify the work done. I’ve spent the last eight months on the project, so how difficult can talking about the project for half-an-hour be? I could probably go on for several hours… Since the Viva serves as my right-to-reply to the initial assessment of my project report, I’ll resist the temptation to go into a deep analysis here of the final report until the process is done and dusted. Better to avoid running the risk of prejudicing the outcome one way or the other.

The project submission tipped off a hectic period. I had aimed for at least a week off during the Easter, however this dropped to a few days including a trip to Hertfordshire for Networkshop 39. For those unfamiliar, Networkshop is a conference organised by ja.net, who essentially act as an ISP for the UK’s Higher Education and Further Education establishments. This conference is aimed at the network administrators of education establishments. I was there to present on the subject of student requirements in higher education. This included services provided by universities with the aim of improving support of a growing range of devices from smartphones, tablets to laptops and desktop computers. It was only an opportune moment to sing the praises of various services and ideas initiated at ECS. This included Open Data as a foundation for the provision of data for student services. In addition, I spoke of the need to provide slides in a PDF format, which is possible to render on the vast majority of devices available to students at zero cost typically. This is in contrast to Powerpoint presentations, which require the purchase of Microsoft Office or another viewer. It was both a challenge and a privilege to present. Originally I was presenting as part of a pair, but my co-presenter Nick Hatter sadly had to withdraw due to illness. I am much happier about presenting in front of a large audience now and have a better idea of what is necessary. I look forward to having another opportunity to present, if only to improve upon my presentational style.